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Janet Porter’s Faith2Action organisation is currently promoting two projects: the Ohio “Heartbeat Bill” – which will has been forwarded to the Ohio senate and which will ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected – and her “Israel: You’re Not Alone” campaign, which was created amidst a flurry of media interest back in May to oppose Obama’s middle east policies but which hasn’t done anything much since.

Faith2Action is inviting churches and pro-lifers everywhere to the Heartbeat Bill Rally, Tuesday, September 20, 2011 in the atrium of the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus from 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. The speakers will include pro-life pioneer Dr. Jack Willke, who founded National and Ohio Right to Life, Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, Wendy Wright, former president of Concerned Women for America, Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, Dutch Sheets, Rick Scarborough of Vision America, Rick Joyner of the Oak Initiative, and journalist Jill Stanek.

…Other speakers include State Representative Lynn Wachtmann who sponsored the bill successfully through the Ohio House, Julie Busby of Ohio Right to Life, Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values Action,Mark Harrington of Created Equal, Bobbi Radeck, the Ohio Director of Concerned Women for America, Barry Sheets of the Institute for Principled Policy, Paula Westwood, of Cincinnati Right to Life, Lori Viars of Warren County Right to Life, Chris Long of the Ohio Christian Alliance, and Linda Theis, former president of Ohio Right to Life.

The day will begin with prayer at 7:00 a.m. with Dutch Sheets, national speaker and author of Intercessory Prayer, Dr. Tim Sheets pastor of The Oasis in Middletown, Ohio, Pastor Corey Shankleton of Life House Ministry Outreach Center, Jodi Horn, Horn of David Ministries,and Robyn Morris of the Wilmington House of (24-7) Prayer.

It appears that while Porter Faith2Action supposedly wants “churches and pro-lifers everywhere” to take part in its rally, the line-up is drawn from the neo-Pentecostal end of the Christian Right, in particular Dutch Sheets and Rick Joyner – Porter is herself a member of Joyner’s Oak Initiative, which I have discussed in a number of blog posts.

The “Israel You’re Not Alone” campaign, meanwhile, was launched in May at an event which included “three authors of Shariah: The Threat to America” (blogged here): these were Frank Gaffney, Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin (ret.), and Tom Trento; Boykin is also a member of the Oak Inititive, and he and Joyner are also part of of a strange “chivalric order”. The launch was held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and – by a strange co-incidence – followed a room booking by the Council for the National Interest, which opposes pro-Israeli lobbies and policies. Some heated discussion followed, including a spat between William J. Murray of the Religious Freedom Coalition and the CNI’s Alison Weir (website tag-line: “I am not the British historian, please stop threatening her”). Murray accused Weir of hating Jews, and Weir responded by filming Murray on her camera; Murray then smacked the camera out of her hand and across the room, prompting Boykin to discretely head for the exit.

Porter is also a columnist with WorldNetDaily, and I’ve noted her work a couple of times: in 2007 (when she was known as Janet Folger) she accidentally cited a neo-Nazi crank in a column railing against homosexuality, and in 2009 she used her platform to fearmonger shamelessly over vaccinations against swine flu. She quoted the absurd Jane Burgermeister, and warned that

…the Army and National Guard are postingfor “Internment/Resettlement Specialists” for “confinement,” “control,” “custody,” “supervision” and “counseling individual prisoners in rehabilitative programs.”

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Note on Attacks

Anyone who comments on current affairs on-line risks being smeared by attack sites and/or abusive Tweets. This is particularly so if one chooses to challenge dishonesty or other kinds of reprehensible behaviour.

As a result of making a stand in a few particular instances, I have become the focus of a number of such attacks. Those who have targeted me include: a Nigerian evangelist who believes in "child witches"; former activists with the EDL; a man with a long history of bad debt and grandiosity; a sockpuppeting tabloid journalist; and a self-serving "celebrity" MP who deploys smears to discourage scrutiny.

The bad faith of such sites and Tweets ought to be self-evident. However, any readers interested in the true background can read this and this.